If your organization suffers from a good-enough culture, take heart: there are steps that you can take as a leader in overcoming a good-enough culture. As I mentioned in a previous post, caring is linked to understanding. Author Chowdhury, in his book, The Difference: When Good Enough Isn’t Enough, suggests that leaders who apply these […]

Whether you’re hiring a CEO, an employee, or a subcontractor, you always take a risk. Unfortunately, there are times when people will go to great lengths to misrepresent themselves and thus create the need for background check resources and references. In attempt to avoid the deception trap the next time you interview a potential candidate, […]

Different things motivate different people. Some are motivated to enhance their appearance while others are motivated by prestige or money. When it comes to work, many people are not motivated to do much of anything except show up and collect a paycheck. It’s our job as managers to create an environment in which employees are […]

Today’s fast-moving business environment demands that the effective manager be both a well-organized administrator and highly adept in understanding people’s basic needs and behavior in the workplace. Gaining commitment, nurturing talent, and ensuring employee motivation and productivity require open communication and trust between managers and staff. Below are 10 ways in which you can stimulate […]

In my previous post I mentioned that the ability to really listen is the most overlooked and undervalued skill in both business and personal life. We rarely take time to practice doing it better. In Power Listening: Mastering the Most Critical Business Skill of All (Portfolio Hardcover, 2012), Bernard T. Ferrari suggests four steps that form […]

9 Keys to Better Listening Keep the following goals in mind when practicing good listening skills: Just listen. Don’t interrupt. Don’t finish the other person’s sentences. Don’t say “I knew that.” Don’t agree with the other person. Be neutral. Even if he praises you, just say “thank you.” Don’t use the words “no,” “but” or […]

Why Don’t We Listen? When you meet with your boss, an important client, a potential new friend or a love interest, you manage to listen without interrupting. You’re a paragon of attentiveness, asking all the right questions and paying attention to the answers. You make sure you don’t talk too much. Highly successful people do […]

Listening, but Not Hearing Consider this: We retain only 25 percent of what we hear. Why? The average person speaks at about 130 words per minute. Our thinking speed is about 500 words per minute. Consequently, we jump ahead of what is actually being said. This causes our minds to wander, and we think about […]

Why do we admire celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Bill Clinton? They make you feel like you’re the most important person in the room. They excel at listening – a skill that separates great personalities from the near-great. When you meet Clinton for the first time, he says something positive to […]

How to Add Humor at Work Timing can be everything when it comes to humor. Follow these guidelines to increase your chances of getting a few chuckles after your next one-liner: Watch for a playful mood before you tell a joke. Keep your stories short and simple. Laugh at your own jokes when a room […]

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Being a sustainable leader isn’t just a ‘touchy-feely’ term. It’s about creating innovation and collaboration within your environment. It’s about accomplishing goals that matter. And yes, it’s even about improving the bottom line of your business.

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